Looking at the totals at the bottom of the article, the fraud would only lower the votes for Putin's United Russia by 6 percentage units. However, this would be enough to make a coalition of the second, third and fourth party larger than United Russia.

The Riemann Hypothesis (known by the moniker @unsolvable on twitter) has announced an online workshop which it intends to 'conclude by attacking an important mathematician in front of (the participants), in public view.' The mathematician is the Rohit Gupta. The hypothesis outlines its approach based on previous failed attempts, conserved in quasicrystals of the tears of previously broken mathematicians. Its audacious plan, coupled with this recent news about quasicrystals, has kicked up a storm of interest in the Indian twitterverse.

Google compares JPG and WebP at the same level of noise (PSNR). What is missing is comparing the same-size JPG and WebP images. If we can recompress JPEGs to the same size as WebP without visible loss of quality, or without loss of quality worse than WebP recompression, we should just dial down the JPG quality, not switch to WebP.

A note on sending DMCA takedowns to Swedish companies: It ought to work, legally speaking. Not because Sweden has DMCA, but because a Swedish entity becomes liable when they "become aware or should become aware" that they host or link to infringing content. Whether that awareness comes in the form of a DMCA takedown or by smoke signals doesn't matter.

Think about what you just said, then remember that Sweden is not the United States, not a Territory of the United States, and is not in any way, shape, or form, beholden to the laws of the United States.

The DMCA is a US-only law. It does not apply outside of the US and its Territories, no matter how much the public domain thieves might wish it to.

I know that the DMCA is a US-only law. But "Lag (2002:562) om elektronisk handel och andra informationssamhällets tjänster" is a Swedish law, and it specifies that liability kicks in when you become aware of infringing content (see section 18) - without specifying how that awareness is reached. So if a Swedish operator receives a DMCA complaint one could claim that the operator at that point should become aware of the presence of infringing material. It is then up to the operator to investigate and take action.

I wouldn't call it a double standard. It's the way the legal system works.

It's not just where you link, it is about what your intent was when you created the link, and many other factors. It is impossible to make a general decision without factoring in these things, and impossible to write a law that explicitly enumerates absolutely every possible situation, so we're down to judges and juries trying to make sense of it all.

Even if I agree with the rest of your post, there's a little something that I find somewhat objectionable, if only because it's impossible to apply in a rational way without incurring in a double standard:

So yes, if you link to a webpage that links to an illegal torrent, you are guilty.

And if I link to a webpage that links to a webpage that links to an illegal torrent? And if I link to a webpage that links to a webpage that links to a webpage that links to an illegal torrent? And if... Well, you get the idea.

I really have no idea exactly where the line is drawn. Ultimately it comes down to case law.

Do I have to check every link of every webpage I link to, and every link of each of the linked pages, and so on and so forth, to the Infinite and Beyond?

Actually, what you just said would be true - if it weren't for the fact that Google actively removes links to infringing content.

Google does not remove links to links to links to infringing content.

They do. See here, and you'll see a list of URLs that aren't themselves copies of "Avatar", but that are pages that link to a torrent or something similar. You'll also see search pages that link to pages that in turn link to the content. (The "http://torrentreactor.net/search.php" ones.)

Now whether this post will be removed... well, we'll have to just wait and see.

But in this case I would say that unless they've screwed up really bad, there'll be nothing formally binding TPB and OBT together.

Well, this is the score: Peter Sunde, who was one of the four convicted of TPB, said:

Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde has informed TorrentFreak that the site will soon decentralize and stop running a BitTorrent tracker of its own. Instead they will encourage their users to use a yet to be launched third party tracker for their torrents.

48 hours later, Openbittorrent was launched.

Sunde and the four have claimed that they have sold TPB, but could not show any sales contracts or money transfers, or anything else to support that they had actually sold anything to anyone. In particular, they could not name who it was that signed the contract on behalf of the buyer.

If it is now shown that Sunde or another one of the four, or someone with ties to them are behind OBT, well... I'd say they're in for some hurt.

you must not host anything connected with any illegal acts. Such as a torrent file that is used for illegal purposes.

Your argument basically makes Google illegal, so doesnt really wash.

Actually, what you just said would be true - if it weren't for the fact that Google actively removes links to infringing content. So yes, if you link to a webpage that links to an illegal torrent, you are guilty. But if you remove the link on request you are considered in the clear.

During the Pirate Bay trial, this distinction was made, and it was made clear that Google's compliance with DMCA takedown letters is the only thing that keeps them from being sued.

TPB's compliance with DMCA takedowns (or the Swedish equivalent), however, was, shall we say, not that speedy.

A note on sending DMCA takedowns to Swedish companies: It ought to work, legally speaking. Not because Sweden has DMCA, but because a Swedish entity becomes liable when they "become aware or should become aware" that they host or link to infringing content. Whether that awareness comes in the form of a DMCA takedown or by smoke signals doesn't matter.

True, the court did find that. But the law they used only requires "willful ignorance", so while different, I suspect that the same law will be used again - especially since it is the only law I know of that defines the rights and responsibilities for an internet service provider (not just providers of connectivity, but also websites etc.).

If OBT is found to be completely unaffiliated with any websites or organizations that do actively commit copyright infringement, then proving "willful ignorance" is that much harder. For example, drug lords may use GPG, but unless you can prove that whoever wrote GPG is in cahoots with said drug lords, they can't be held responsible for aiding and abetting. (Even then, the GPG author would probably not, strictly speaking, be accused of the mere act of writing crypto software.)

The suspicion is this: (1) The people behind TPB say they sold the website, but haven't been able to provide any contracts, money transfers or any trace of said sale. (2) OBT is run by the same, or nearly the same, bunch of people.

The case will be much stronger if those two points can be proven.

An analogy would be this: If I say to person A that "I'm going to kill Joe Bloke", buy a gun at place B, a map at place C and ask person D where I can find Joe Bloke, I'm probably the only one that can be held responsible. But if it then turns out that person A runs the gun shop, map shop and is the same as person D, well, A has problems.